Toon Tuesday : Will “Robinsons” lackluster box office actually help speed the return of traditional animation at Walt Disney Studios?

Jim Hill

17 years ago

I spent the better part of yesterday on the phone with folks at Walt Disney Studios. Each of whom put their own special spin on “Meet the Robinsons” ‘s No. 2 finish at the box office this past weekend.

Okay. So $25.1 million in ticket sales isn’t exactly something to sneeze at. Particularly when you consider that — just the weekend before — “TMNT” claimed the No. 1 spot at the box office with an opening weekend gross of $24.3 million.

But if you were to compare “Meet the Robinsons” opening to that of “Chicken Little” …

Title	Opening Weekend Gross	Per Screen Average
“Chicken Little”	$40 million	$10,960 per screen
“Meet the Robinsons”	$25.1 million	$7361 per screen

Or — better yet — were you to compare what Disney Feature Animation’s latest CG production made this past weekend to what other recent computer-animated features (Which were also released during the month of March) earned over their own opening weekends …

Title	Release Date	Opening Weekend Gross	Per Screen Average
“Ice Age : The Meltdown”	March 31, 2006	$68 million	$17,162 per screen
“Ice Age”	March 15, 2002	$46.3 million	$13,966 per screen
“Robots”	March 11, 2005	$36 million	$9545 per screen
“Meet the Robinsons”	March 30, 2007	$25.1 million	$7361 per screen

… We’re not exactly talking about stellar numbers here.

Oh, sure. “Meet the Robinsons” easily out-performed WDFA’s last two traditionally animated features …

Title	Opening Weekend Gross	Per Screen Average
“Meet the Robinsons”	$25.1 million	$7361 per screen
“Brother Bear”	$19.4 million	$6404 per screen
“Home on the Range”	$13.8 million	$4505 per screen

… But it’s that 35% difference between what “Chicken Little” earned over its opening weekend versus “Meet the Robinsons” earned over its own opening weekend that’s now troubling Mouse House insiders.

Okay. Admittedly, there were some contributing factors here. And — believe me, folks — I heard about each & every one of them yesterday. Everything from ” … We knew going into this past weekend that ‘Blades of Glory’ was going to be No. 1 at the box office” to ” … There’s no denying that we lost a lot of potential ‘Meet the Robinsons’ customers to ‘TMNT’ ” to ” … Our animated releases always do better in November than they do in March.” I even had Mouse House officials telling me about how the Final Four had a significant impact on this past weekend’s box office.

Mind you, for every justification that I got for “Meet the Robinsons” ‘s opening weekend grosses being sub-par, I then heard about how ” … This is just a momentary dip in the road.” That — given how this coming weekend is Easter (More importantly, given that a good part of the country will soon be out on school vacation) — that we can then expect WDFA’s latest CG production to continue to pull strong numbers throughout the month of April. And that — thanks to the 581 theaters that are now showing “Meet the Robinsons” in Disney Digital 3D — that this Steve Anderson film is sure to develop strong legs. Which is why it’s quite likely that — before the month is out — that “Meet the Robinsons” will officially achieve blockbuster status (I.E. Earned over $100 million during its initial domestic run).

Which I might have believed. If the box office for the second weekend of “TMNT” hadn’t just fallen off by 62%.

Which is why I’m now quite reluctant to predict what “Meet the Robinsons” ‘s final box office tally might be. So instead of climbing out on that particular limb … Why don’t I share a story that I heard yesterday? Where a WDFA vet told me about how “Meet the Robinsons” not doing as well as “Chicken Little” might eventually turn out to be a good thing. Particularly for all you traditional animation fans out there.

How so? Here. I’ll let my unnamed source spin out this intriguing scenario for you:

“By the end of this summer, when people in the industry are looking at what ‘Ratatouille‘ and ‘Shrek the Third‘ earned, that $100 million that ‘Meet the Robinsons’ had to struggle through the entire month of April in order to earn is going to look pretty paltry.

After that, all eyes are going to then be on ‘Enchanted.’ To see how well a new Walt Disney Pictures release that features traditional animation does. If that Kevin Lima film turns out to be a genuine blockbuster (Which — these days, allowing for inflation — means that you actually have to pull in over $200 million during your domestic release) … Well, the pressure’s really on then for ‘America Dog.’

And God forbid if that Chris Williams movie makes less at the box office than ‘Meet the Robinsons’ eventually does … If that were to happen, there are people here at this studio that would view that box office slump as a sign that moviegoers don’t really like WDFA CG films. That they’d prefer it if Disney left the computer animation to Pixar.

Copyright 2007 Walt Disney Enterprises

Which would then put an awful lot of pressure on ‘The Frog Princess.’ To see if that Ron Clements & John Musker film actually delivers on the promise of ‘Enchanted.’ Giving people not just 10 or 15 minutes of a traditionally animated fairy tale. But a full-blown feature-length traditionally animated feature along the lines of ‘The Little Mermaid,’ ‘Beauty & the Beast‘ and ‘Aladdin.’

If ‘Frog Princess’ is a smash … Well, that would then be pretty much all she wrote for CG at WDFA. Executives here will then use that event as an excuse to turn this studio back into a traditional animation operation.

Alright. Even I have to admit that the above scenario seems like a pretty iffy proposition. Particularly given that John Lasseter & Ed Catmull keep talking about how that they themselves aren’t pushing for WDFA to return to its traditional animation roots. But — rather — that these two Pixar vets are going to let the directors of each upcoming Disney Feature Animation production decide for themselves if their film should be traditionally animated or produced in CG.

Which seems like a perfectly reasonable explantion. Except that … Given that it’s John & Ed who now have final say over which films WDFA actually puts into production … Wouldn’t it stand to reason that they could then deliberately choose directors who were championing traditionally animated projects?

This is why a lot of folks in Burbank are now wondering if “American Dog” and “Rapunzel” might be WDFA’s last official CG projects. That — once those two films make it all the way through Disney’s production pipeline — that Feature Animation will then revert to being a traditional animation studio again.

I would imagine — over the next five years or so — that we’ll finally have a definitive answer to that question … Which makes me wish that Wilbur Robinson would drop by with that snazzy flying time machine of his. So that we could then all journey to the future and see how this whole WDFA / Pixar merger – reorganization thing actually plays out.

But — for now — all we’ve got are these early box office returns as well as some bits & pieces from behind-the-scenes. Sooo … Does the above scenario sound at all likely to you folks? Or instead does it come across as too much wishful thinking by a guy who really misses working with his pencil?

Your thoughts?